People's Republic of China
The People's Republic of China was an independent socialist republic founded by Mao Zedong during the First Great War. His Chinese Communist Party was an important player in the war and achieved great successes fighting against the Imperial Japanese. Background The last of the Imperial Chinese dynasties collapsed in 1911, leaving China open to exploitation. Local warlords maintained control of their lands and functioned effectively as independent republics. In 1914, the First Great War began in Europe, though the conflict would not reach the Chinese for another fifteen years. A coalition of warlords had coalesced into the People's Congress who desired to see a united China. This People's Congress was divided into two distinct but united for the moment factions: The Chinese Communist Party, or the CPC, and the Kuomintang Party, or KP. The CPC represented traditional Marxism and advocated a worker-led China with the total seizure of lands from the warlords. The Kuomintang were nationalist unificationists and fierce anti-monarchists. Together, these two factions pressed into Northern China and overthrew warlords. In 1917, the CPC made contact with the Russian communists in Moscow. Early next year, the leader of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kaishek, was sent to Moscow as a diplomat. In Moscow, the CPC secured an alliance with the Soviets and opened lines of communication. The Soviets in Russia sent captured German war material to the Chinese to aid in their war of unification. However, the Soviets and the Chinese had different ideas of where to take communism in China. The Soviets desired to make a single united pancommunist front including China, Russia, and other territories. With the influence of the Kuomintang, it was widely accepted among Chinese intellectuals that communism could work in one nation, and indeed, any united communist entity would have to function according to nationalist lines. In 1918, the CPC and the KP formed the United Front and publicly declared a war of Chinese unification. For the next decade, the Chinese worked to unify the mainland. The United Front had a distinct advantage against the warlords by way of strategy and numbers. Historical analysis reveals that the warlords were unable to reach any sort of compromise or unification against the revolutionary front. The United Front overwhelmed warlords by fighting a single front at a time, using superior strategy and weapons imported from the Soviets to liberate Chinese lands from feudalism. Once liberated, land would be distributed to local peasants and an officer of the United Front left there to oversee the transition to collective communism. By and large, the peasantry welcomed their liberators. By 1930, the countryside was in open revolt against feudalism and the United Front was arming peasants to aid in the struggle. The First Great War in China In 1931, the Imperial Japanese launched a two-pronged lightning campaign against the Chinese.During the War, the Japanese had been seising pacific islands and had successfully conquered Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and New Guinea. Seeing an opportunity for expansion in war-torn China, the Japanese took Taiwan and Hong Kong from the South, and overran Manchuria and Korea. The United Front was not prepared for such a well organised and well fueled attack. Both the Chinese and the Soviets declared war on Imperial Japan. Unbeknownst to either power, the Japanese enjoyed a secret alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, and agreed to split both China and Russia equally if they won the war. Declaration of the People's Republic Second Great War Destruction